On August 16, a SpiceJet Bombardier aircraft will take to the skies from the Hyderabad airport, in possibly routine circumstances, and touch down about an hour later amid great fanfare at Puducherry airport.
The arrival of the Hyderabad-Puducherry Q-400 aircraft-SG 1004 will mark the resumption of air connectivity to Puducherry after a rather chequered aviation record — the airport has been dormant since October 2015 when Alliance Air suspended its flight services between Puducherry and Bengaluru.
The flight services are being resumed under the Centre’s Regional Connectivity Scheme — the Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik or UDAN — being implemented by the Airports Authority of India to make flying affordable to smaller cities.
According to the schedule released by SpiceJet, the daily flight SG 1004 will leave Hyderabad at 10 a.m. and arrive here at 11.20 a.m. ,while the return service SG 1005 will depart from Puducherry at 11.40 a.m. and arrive at Hyderabad at 1.10 p.m.
The starting fare (all inclusive) is pegged at ₹3,040 from Hyderabad to Puducherry and ₹2,800 from here to Hyderabad.
Shilpa Bhatia, Senior Vice-President, Commercial, SpiceJet, said in New Delhi on Monday, “SpiceJet is glad to announce its third UDAN route. The new flight will get Puducherry closer to major destinations on SpiceJet’s network.”
With this new flight, Puducherry will be connected through onward flights with Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Tirupati, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Vijayawada and Varanasi, SpiceJet said.
The operator is using its Bombardier Q400 plane with a 78-seat capacity on the route.
Obviously, there is much political capital to be gained from the resumption of flight connectivity for the Congress-led Government headed by Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy.
“We’ve planned a fitting reception at the airport on the day,” the Chief Minister told The Hindu . The government is also looking at flight connectivity as a gateway to overall development, he added.
“Resumption of flight connectivity will be a major boost to several important tourism projects in Puducherry on the anvil, especially on the heritage and spiritual tourism front,” Mr. Narayanasamy said.
Under Swadesh Darshan scheme, the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, has sanctioned ₹66.34 crore for the Heritage Tourism Circuit and ₹40.68 crore for the Spiritual Tourism Circuit.
Mr. Narayanasamy pointed out that Puducherry was also in the process of implementing an ambitious Smart City project and air connectivity could be an integral part of its realisation.
Recently, Mr. Narayanasamy and representatives of the French agency Agence Française de Développement (AFD) had signed an agreement for the release of the first tranche of ₹535 crore out of a soft loan of ₹1,400 crore to the Union Territory for the Smart City project. The Centre is also contributing significantly to the ₹ 1800-crore project.
“We are also exploring the introduction of flight services to other destinations such as Bengaluru and Tirupati,” said Mr. Narayanasamy who is expected to meet Civil Aviation Ministry officials and SpiceJet representatives in Delhi later this month.
The UDAN scheme has in fact facilitated a second collaboration for the Puducherry Government and SpiceJet.
When Puducherry debuted on the aviation map in 2013, it was incidentally SpiceJet that became the first and sole commercial operator to launch direct flights connecting the city and Bengaluru.
Viability issues
SpiceJet had launched services from here in 2013 with direct flights connecting Puducherry and Bengaluru. However, the airline stopped services citing viability issues after operating the last Bombardier flight on January 31, 2014.
After over a year of hibernation, the Puducherry airport roared back to life when Alliance Air, the budget airlines of Air India, launched flights to Bengaluru six days a week on April 14, 2015.
However, in October the same year, the services were withdrawn following a subsidy spat with the government.
